Tuesday, 31 October 2017

The pea-brained pigs who are supposed to be defending your " freedom of speech " have no intention of doing so. These mental midgets are showing their true fucking colours every day, so there can be no mistake as to where they stand. Stupid fuckers.

From Revolution Club Chicago:

Police Blare Sirens to Drown Out Word of November 4 Outside High School

Updated October 22, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

The Revolution Club back at Kenwood High School October 20. Photo: special to revcom.us

Watch and download... A new film:

Update October 22: The Revolution Club went right back out to Kenwood High School the day after the police tried to literally drown out their interactions with the students. This time the police stayed away while the school security messed with the organizers and students, but they couldn't stop the students from signing the banner and getting organized for November 4th.

Thursday, October 19, at Kenwood Academy High School, Chicago police swarmed Kenwood students after school, using force and intimidation tactics to attempt to stop the students from talking with organizers about the November 4 protests to drive out the Trump/Pence regime. Police pulled up with three marked SUVs, driving one of them onto the sidewalk of the school, which was crowded with students, and turned the siren on for several minutes to drown out the message. They snatched flyers and stickers out of the hands of students and used their authority to tell students they had to leave the front of the school. The Revolution Club was promoting the film of a new talk by Bob Avakian on www.revcom.us, THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO! In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America—A Better World IS Possible, and held a banner that students were reading and adding their own messages to, “Hey Trump, from those you like to demonize: You and your GANG in the White House are the real thugs and threat to humanity. In the name of humanity, WE WILL DRIVE YOUR ASS OUT!” Students talked about their anger at Trump/Pence for targeting Mexicans, ripping apart Muslim families, insulting and dehumanizing Black people, and threatening nuclear war.

It is unacceptable that police be allowed to politically repress high school students. This would be unacceptable at any time, but especially in the current situation where these students are being demonized by a regime that openly extols white supremacy, male supremacy, and American supremacy; jokes about hanging LGBT people and threatens humanity with nuclear war; and when “free speech” is being rewritten to enforce neo-Nazi speech while those who protest these injustices are unjustly repressed by police and repeatedly attacked by Trump thugs.

Students have the right to know about the RefuseFascism.org call for protests beginning November 4, continuing and growing every day and night until the demand is met: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! Students have a right to express their political positions and to be part of protests against a fascist regime. And students have a right to hear about and get organized with the movement for revolution and the radical revolutionary leader, Bob Avakian.

Stand with the Kenwood students and the movement to drive out the Trump/Pence Regime. Call the principal at Kenwood Academy High School at 773-535-1350 and the commander at Chicago Police Department District 21 at 312-747-8340, to demand school authorities and police keep their hands off students and organizers for expressing themselves against the Trump/Pence regime and for the November 4 protests.

Revolution Club Organizing Center

1857 E 71st Street (near Jeffries in South Shore) Chicago, Illinois. Open noon to 9 pm every day till November 4

PRLF is an educational literature fund that has sent Revolution newspaper (www.revcom.us), works from Bob Avakian, (Chairman of the RCP) and other revolutionary and scientific literature to hundreds of prisoners across the U.S. for 10 years. PRLF has fought attempts by prison officials to censor these publications. For example, the ACLU of Southern California successfully represented PRLF in a censorship battle focused on Pelican Bay State Prison with statewide ramifications in California.

The following is from a prisoner who is responding and adding his name to the statement against the move by Global Exchange to withdraw fiscal sponsorship from the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund (PRLF). As revcom.us has written, “This action by Global Exchange is unacceptable on general principle, but particularly in the time of Trump, this is downright unconscionable.”

Dear PRLF,

Yes, Comrades, please add my name to the list of incarcerated Communists who wish to lend our names to the statement to Global Exchange’s new Dictator (... ahem, I’m mean director) Jeff Ordower.

The decision to politicize the rehabilitation of brothers and sisters by defunding the RCP is more than unconscionable; it is another shot fired in the war Amerikkka and its capitalist/imperialist allies have waged against Black and Brown men and women of poor or lower class distinction. It is a deliberate attempt to interfere with the edification and vitalization of the oppressed, suppressed, repressed, and depressed’s most pivotal minds in the universal struggle for change that is the New Communism B.A. awakens us to.

We are the most dangerous components of Revolution because no one feels more deeply than us the effects of racial and class caste systems, i.e. capitalism/imperialism through fascism under the guise of a so-called democratic republic (demonic states united). The news we’re given through the Revolution and, more recently, the newsletters that the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund is able to send us is vital to the new awakening and redirection of already revolutionary hearts.

Jeff Ordower would prefer that we either remain miseducated or uneducated so that we cannot “Refuse Fascism.”

This cannot be allowed to happen! So yes, I would like to lend my name to the Statement. But feel free to use my name. I do not fear reprisals; I fear complacency; and I am MORE than willing to stand at the front-lines and fight for the equality of all.

Sunday, 29 October 2017

When it was reported that amerikkkan special forces troops were killed in Niger, the only thing people got crazy about was whether or not trump called the families of the dead soldiers. I was curious as to what the fuck they were doing in Niger in the first fucking place. Well, this article asks the same question :

American Crime is a regular feature of revcom.us. Each installment focuses on one of the 100 worst crimes committed by the U.S. rulers—out of countless bloody crimes they have carried out against people around the world, from the founding of the U.S. to the present day.

Here’s a question about the firefight involving U.S. troops in the West African nation of Niger that you won’t hear from some senator or commentator on CNN:

“What the FUCK is the U.S. Army doing in Niger in the first place?”

Think about it. Or imagine this: People in Niger hear that Black people in America are being shot down by police and then the police are not tried or, if they are tried, are acquitted 67 percent of the time. They further learn that this is the spearpoint of a whole genocidal program that includes mass incarceration, discrimination in every sphere of society, denial and stripping away of basic civil rights, and demonization by politicians and the media. And on top of that they learn that the new Trump/Pence administration is promising, and already carrying out, a far worse escalation of all this.

Does Niger then send its soldiers to the U.S. to stop such terror from going on, or to even offer training to the U.S. police? Obviously not. But wouldn’t Niger certainly have at least as much right to do that as the U.S. does to send itstroops to Niger?

So then what gives the U.S. the right to station its troops in virtually every single country in the world?!? “Oh, we’ve been asked to come in” (and if the Niger government didn’t ask them, the U.S. would try to overthrow it). “Oh, we have to defend our people in the U.S. in case some Islamic fundamentalist jihadist terrorist in Niger comes over here” (and do you really think that there would even be jihadist terrorism in the first place were it not for (a) the far greater terrorism carried out by the U.S., its proxy Israel, and its puppet governments in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc., and (b) the long years spent building up jihadist terrorism when that suited U.S. interests in moving against the Soviet Union and movements like the secular Palestinian liberation movements?). And when all else fails, there is what Bob Avakian (BA) called “the great tautological fallacy” in his recent speech, THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO! In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America. A Better World IS Possible:

America is a force for good in the world, and therefore whatever it does is good (or at least done with “good intentions”), even if the same thing when done by other forces, especially forces opposed to “us,” is bad, is evil—because... because America is a force for good in the world.

And BA goes on to show over and over again how this has served and still serves as the thinnest cover for acts of towering atrocity and horror. In fact, nothing gives the U.S. armed forces the “right” to be in Niger or in any of the other 150 or so countries that they’re stationed in but the overwhelming force they have. Force in the service of imperialist empire.

We spoke with General T.A.C.O. (which stands for "Taking All Capitalists Out") about Freddie Gray, gang truces, and the Black Lives Matter movement.

General T.A.C.O. a.k.a. Wolverine Shakur is the leader of the Black Riders Liberation Party, a group in Los Angeles also known as the "New Generation Black Panther Party for Self-Defense." As that name implies, they're not exactly shy about their activism: In March, they traveled to Texas and marched with the Huey Newton Gun Club through South by Southwest, carrying guns to the state capitol to "raise the cry for armed self-defense" for the black community.

The link between black activism and gun control goes back a long ways. The "open carry" of firearms was banned in California by the Mulford Act in 1967 in response to the armed police patrols of the original Black Panthers; their ideological successors in the Black Riders now organize "Watch-A-Pig" patrols in South LA, Oakland, and elsewhere to defend against what they see as "police terrorism." While they can't lawfully carry loaded guns, they say they use video cameras and "legal weapons" to confront police arresting black suspects. But where they differ from the Copwatch approach is that their eventual goal is total revolution.

We spoke with General T.A.C.O. (which stands for "Taking All Capitalists Out") about Baltimore, gang truces, and the history of Black America. His comments reveal an alternative narrative of contemporary race relations that's instructive for understanding how some black Americans view the current wave of attention to police brutality as the beginning of a renewed Black Power movement. Here's what he had to say:

VICE: In the past year, with a number of high-profile incidents involving police killings of black suspects, have you seen more interest in the message of the Black Riders? General T.A.C.O.: Yes, we've been growing pretty rapidly in the last year and a half. We're also extremely strong in the prison-industrial complex—we have a nationwide prison chapter. By the pigs exposing their hand, they're revealing to the public the things that have been going on in the black community since we were dragged here on slave ships from Africa. They're using the same repressive, violent measures to colonize us into the position that we're in right now. The police came from the paddy rollers, patrollers, who chased down runaway slaves and dragged them back to the plantation.

In that case, do you think that any type of police reform efforts are going to make life easier for the black community, or do you think it's going to take a more systemic solution? We see the whole issue of police terrorism as being tied to the issue of white supremacy and capitalism and US imperialism on the planet. We see our struggle and our freedom tied to an international struggle against a worldwide capitalist class, which has been oppressing people around the world since its existence. When we talk about police terrorism, it's in conjunction with property relations, in conjunction with means of production and distribution of wealth. We deal with economic, social, and political subjugation and repression. The police act to protect the property of the capitalist class. As long as those types of property relations exist, we're gonna have a problem with this government; we're gonna have problems with capitalism, white supremacy, and US imperialism. We see a need to educate our people for armed self-defense and community service, then after that we want to move them to a community where we're in control of the police and where we can disarm the pigs. But even that alone would never work—we need to have total revolution to deal with police terrorism, because as long as the state is in the pocket of the ruling class, we're always going to have this racial and class conflict.

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Since the announcement of criminal charges against officers who arrested Freddie Gray, tensions on the ground in Baltimore have appeared to relax. What do you think is the next step for black organizers seeking to prevent further police abuses? What they can learn from the Freddie Gray situation is that the need to resist is necessary. No longer can we sit idly by and watch the pigs terrorize our communities. You have to understand that even though this concession was given to the masses, it was designed to appease them, to offset the real revolutionary rage that's inside of them from being oppressed by a racist US government. It's like they did with those small crumbs of reform in the 60s like affirmative action; they created a black neocolonial class to provide a buffer guard for the ruling class. They need these house negroes to convince us that the capitalist, white-supremacist system works, despite the fact [that] it doesn't. We've already proven that by numerous times throughout our history where the police have been indicted for a crime, and yet still, because of the racial dynamics of the jury pool, which is usually white, we don't have anybody there to represent the interests of our people. Our peer group are those around us in a geographic location, who talk like us, look like us. As long as the jury pool is composed of people who are alien to our culture, to our language, to our ways as a people, then they're going to see things through a white, racist, capitalist viewpoint, and end up letting the pigs off.

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Who are some members of this black neocolonial class, in your view? Obama! He's the ultimate neocolonial puppet. We like to say, look at race car drivers, like Mario Andretti, one of the fastest race car drivers in the world. If you put that man inside a Pinto, a raggedy Pinto that only goes 50 miles an hour, you'll understand that no matter his skill, no matter his intention or goodwill, he cannot make that Pinto go faster than it was designed to go! The racist US government and its system were never designed for our people; it was designed to enslave, massacre, and genocide our people out of this country. We look at Obama as pushing the same kind of line. He's the grand house negro.

Do you think that charges would have been brought against those officers had there not been demonstrations and rioting in Baltimore? We don't call it rioting ourselves. We think things that the white supremacists did to gain control of this country, like the Boston Tea Party, were riots! This was a rebellion, a righteous response to brutal terrorism. It wasn't the protesting that did it—it was the rebellion that forced the enemy's hand to placate our people and try and calm us down so they can make business as usual. So no, the charges would have never been raised on these dumb pigs unless the rebellion took place. Now we have to keep rebelling as a people for justice and freedom.

So you're not very confident that the charges will stick? I think that people should push and keep up the resistance by any means necessary. We can't depend on pigs to investigate the pigs. We have to understand the criminal justice system is a criminal "criminal justice system" that isn't designed for our people, but to protect to the property of the racist, capitalist ruling class. We cannot depend on these same mechanisms formed by the enemy to seek justice or our freedom.

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A memo was issued by the Baltimore Police Department which alleged that members of the Crips, Bloods, and the Black Guerilla Family were aligning to "take out" police officers. Do you think the police mischaracterized a truce as something violent? This was a deceptive ploy to create mass confusion within our community. They saw that not only were the Bloods and Crips organizing together, members of other gangs such as the Vice Lords and the P. Stones were uniting and seeing the real enemy after the Freddie Gray situation. But also, it's directly tied to history—we have to understand that even during the period of plantation chattel slavery, they did not like two, three, five black people congregating together, because they felt we were conspiring to overthrow the slave masters. It's the same thing today. They don't want us to work together and organize to uplift our community, because we're opposed to their dominance.

You have to understand that in the 80s, the government used the tactics of bringing in crack cocaine and military weaponry to flood the black community. They decided to neutralize the black liberation movement in America and the righteous liberation struggle of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, to wipe out two birds with one white rock. They created the Contras, a group of counter-revolutionaries who pushed cocaine, to overthrow the Sandinistas, while using our own people, Bloods, Crips, and "Freeway" Rick Ross, to bring in crack and military weaponry to throw off the whole black liberation movement. They created the rise of the so-called "gang epidemic," the "crack epidemic," the "guns and violence epidemic"—they created these problems by smuggling these things into our community.

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The whole idea of Crips came from the Black Panther Party. Crips stood for "Class Revolution in Progress," later on Bloods came and created "Black Liberation of Our Descent." Both Bloods and Crips came from the black liberation movement, so the government used our revolutionary righteous thrust and need for freedom and justice, and turned it against us, creating the pop-cultural, subcultural mentality of the "thug." But they are the greatest thugs, the greatest terrorists, the racist US government.

There are Bloods and Crips in peace talks all over this country right now, not only in Baltimore. Not only are Bloods and Crips uniting, Christians and Muslims are uniting. All of our black people that are being oppressed and brutalized by a racist government are in peace talks, love talks, and knowledge-of-self talks, and once this public gets talking, it ain't over. There isn't too much time left until we start walking the walk, and the Black Riders intend to lead them to revolution.

What do you think of the Black Lives Matter movement?The process of awakening, of revolution, is developmental. The initial phase starts when people just talk or scream or yell at the pigs, but once the pigs show their true intentions, and show that they're morally bankrupt, then the Black Lives Matter movement will gain knowledge of the enemy's true nature, and will eventually see the need to push for self-defense and revolution.

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Do you see revolution as inevitable as long as black communities keep resisting, or do you think something could stop it? The only thing that will stop our people from achieving true freedom, justice, and equality is disunity within ourselves. Our goal is to educate and liberate not only black people, but to be the vanguard of the global revolution to wipe out any form of racism or imperialism on the planet. We cannot be free as long as even one slave is oppressed.

What can sympathetic white people, and people of other races, do to assist the black community in defending against police brutality? The main thing sympathetic whites can do is ride on the pigs and white supremacy. It's important that black people are allowed to define themselves and their struggle, for outsiders not to come in and co-opt or water down our righteous revolutionary rage. The main way is to ride on the pigs, to go against the pigs. You've gotta study the history of John Brown, 'cause if you're not John Brown, you might as well get out of town.

Wednesday, 25 October 2017

This article is about the u.s. and their imperialist bullshit they spread around the world. It's from a website that I really can't stand ( politically ), but once in a while, they get it right. Keep in mind, they are still assholes.

The Truth About Niger

Jihadists would be no threat to Americans who were left to mind their own business.

Zayid Ballesteros/US Army / Polaris/NewscomPredictably, the news media spent most of last week examining words Donald Trump may or may not have spoken to the widow of an American Green Beret killed in Niger, in northwest Africa, in early October. Not only was this coverage tedious, it was largely pointless. We know Trump is a clumsy boor, and we also know that lots of people are ready to pounce on him for any sort of gaffe, real or imagined. Who cares? It's not news.

But it was useful to those who wish to distract Americans from what really needs attention: the U.S. government's perpetual war.

The media's efforts should have been devoted to exploring—really exploring—why Green Berets (and drones) are in Niger at all. (This is typical of the establishment media's explanation.) That subject is apparently of little interest to media companies that see themselves merely as cheerleaders for the American Empire. For them, it's all so simple: a U.S president (even one they despise) has put or left military forces in a foreign country—no justification required; therefore, those forces are serving their country; and that in turn means that if they die, they die as heroes who were protecting our way of life. End of story.

Thus the establishment media see no need to present a dissenting view, say, from an analyst who would question the dogma that inserting American warriors into faraway conflicts whenever a warlord proclaims his allegiance to ISIS is in the "national interest." Patriotic media companies have no wish to expose their audiences to the idea that jihadists would be no threat to Americans who were left to mind their own business.

Apparently the American people also must be shielded from anyone who might point out that the jihadist activity in Niger and neighboring Mali is directly related to the U.S. and NATO bombing of Libya, which enabled al-Qaeda and other Muslim militants to overthrow the secular regime of Col. Muammar Qaddafi. That Obama-Clinton operation in 2011, besides producing Qaddafi's grisly murder and turning Libya into a nightmare, facilitated the transfer of weapons and fanatical guerrillas from Libya to nearby countries in the Sahel — as well as Syria. Since then the U.S. government has been helping the French to "stabilize" its former colony Mali with surveillance drones and Green Berets based in Niger. Nice work, Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama and Secretary of State Clinton. (Citizen Trump was an early advocate of U.S. intervention in Libya.) Need I remind you that the U.S./NATO regime-change operation in Libya was based on a lie? Obama later said his failure to foresee the consequences of the Libya intervention was the biggest mistake of his presidency. (For more on the unintended consequences for the Sahel, see articles here, here, and here.)

So the media, which pretends to play a role in keeping Americans informed, have decided the people need not hear the truth behind the events in Niger. Instead, "reporters" and "analysts" perform their role as cheerleaders for the American Empire by declaring the dead men "heroes" and focusing on the tragedy that has befallen their families. Public scrutiny of the military operation is discouraged because it thought to detract from the Green Berets' heroism.

What makes them heroes? They were killed by non-Americans in a foreign land while wearing military uniforms. That's all it takes, according to the gospel of what Andrew Bacevich calls the Church of America the Redeemer and its media choir.

But are they really heroes? We can question this while feeling sorrow for the people who will never see their husbands, sons, brothers, and fathers again. Reporters and analysts who emote over alleged heroism base their claim on the dubious proposition that the men were "serving their country" and "protecting our freedom." A brief examination, however, is enough to show this is not so, although the troops, their families, and many others believe it.

First, their "country," if by this term we mean the American people, did not call them to "service," which itself a question-begging word. The source of the call was a collection of politicians and bureaucrats (including generals) who wouldn't know the public interest from a hole in the ground.

Second, U.S. intervention in the Muslim world, which predates 9/11 and the creation of al-Qaeda and ISIS, has not made Americans safe. On the contrary, it has put them at risk, as the attacks on the World Trade Center demonstrated. Is it hard to believe that people will seek vengeance against those whose government bombs them and starves their children, as the U.S. government did in Iraq all through the 1990s (to take just one example)?

Dying (and killing) for the Empire is not heroic. Allowing yourself to be ordered to intervene in distant conflicts you surely don't understand is not worthy of admiration. What's heroic is resisting the Empire.

Anyone who thought Trump would bring the troops back should now know better. He, of all people, is not about to give up imperial power. The Guardianquotes a former military officer saying, "Since [President] Trump took power, US forces deployed around the world have had a lot more room to manoeuvre. Decisions about when and what to engage have been devolved right down to unit level. Any soldier knows that if you give guys on the ground more independence, then they will be that much more aggressive and will take more risks."

At this point we can't expect the corporate media to quit propagandizing on behalf of the war state and start informing the public of the harm "their" government has inflicted abroad and at home. Fortunately, we have virtually costless access to alternative sources of information about the politicians' and military's mischief. The conundrum is that most people, having been fed a steady diet of pro-war propaganda, won't turn to those sources until they become suspicious of power.

Tuesday, 24 October 2017

It would seem that the trump regime wants to send everyone, and particularly women, back to the dark ages when it comes to human rights. These are fascists. Not "alt-right" or whatever new whitewashed term they have been given. Fucking lowlife scum fascists.

NO! We Must REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America!

by Sunsara Taylor

October 23, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Everyday the Trump/Pence fascist regime is showing us what they stand for. It is our responsibility to drive them from power. November 4 It Begins.

A 17-year-old undocumented and unaccompanied minor, Jane Doe, was recently snatched up and imprisoned in a U.S. detention center. Trapped in a foreign land gripped by rising xenophobia, hundreds of miles from anything familiar, driven to flee by desperate conditions, it seemed the nightmare couldn’t get any worse.

Then, she discovered that she is pregnant.

In a just world, a pregnancy would be either a cause for joy or the reason to schedule a routine, perfectly safe and unstigmatized abortion. Fetuses are not babies, and there is absolutely no reason a woman should be prevented or shamed for getting an abortion.

In Trump/Pence America, however, the discovery of a pregnancy immediately plunged this young woman into an even darker rung of hell. A conspiracy of Christian fascist lunatics are exercising the full power of the federal government to reduce this very young woman to the status of an incubator, working relentlessly to force her to have a child against her will—and setting dangerous precedent that imperils the future of women and girls everywhere.

From the moment Jane Doe discovered her pregnancy, she was adamant that she wanted an abortion. Outrageously, in Texas (as in 21 other states), minors need consent from a parent or a judge to get an abortion. With the help of extraordinarily dedicated advocates, Jane Doe received this permission and scheduled an abortion on September 28.

Then, the Trump/Pence Regime blocked her from getting the abortion.

Scott Lloyd is the fanatical anti-abortion Christian fascist that Trump and Pence chose to head up the Office of Refugee Resettlement and thereby exercise the power of the state over the lives of refugees and immigrants detained by the government. Lloyd not only opposes abortion, he opposes birth control and once personally visited a detained young woman to pressure her into continuing an unwanted pregnancy.

In this case, the word got out at Jane Doe’s detention center that she was not to be released for her September 28 appointment. Instead, her captors forced her to visit a Christian fundamentalist anti-abortion fake “clinic” where she was forced to view an ultrasound. The detention center also called Jane Doe’s mother in her home country and informed her about the pregnancy despite Doe’s plea that her mother was physically abusive.

Even after yetanother court battle in which a federal judge ruled that Doe’s abortion must be allowed (rescheduled for October 20), the Trump/Pence Regime blocked her again. They refused to release her for her appointment and argued doing so didn’t put an “undue burden” on her constitutional right to abortion because Doe still had the “option” of being deported back her home country! Doe is from Central America—and in most countries in that region, abortion is illegal, including three countries where abortion is not allowed even when the life of the woman is at stake.

As each day Doe’s pregnancy advances ever closer to the unjust 20-week legal cutoff for abortions in Texas, her detention center has been further isolating and punishing Doe. Despite the risks to her emotional and physical health, they have prevented her from participating in any physical activity, for example forcing her to sit on a bench while other detained kids were allowed to play in a park.

As the case stands now, the regime insists that Doe will only be allowed to get an abortion if there is a sponsor appointed to her by October 31. Finding a sponsor for an unaccompanied and undocumented minor is a complicated process that usually involves months of searching and vetting. This is cruel, unnecessary, and untenable, and must not be allowed to stand.

Jane Doe is a vulnerable 17-year-old girl imprisoned and facing an unwanted pregnancy in a hostile land. She is a full human being, yet Christian fascists at the vicious core the Trump/Pence regime are using the full force of the most powerful state in the history of the world to reduce her to the status of an incubator. This is a nightmare that no one should tolerate. People must raise their voices and demand that this young woman be given access to her abortion now.

At the same time, millions need to open their eyes to the even greater nightmare this case portends. What is being done to Jane Doe is the future for women and girls everywhere if this fascist Trump/Pence regime is not very soon deprived of its hold over the state. The only way that can happen and lead to anything good for women, for immigrants, and for all of humanity is for thousands and soon millions to take to the streets in massive, sustained, nonviolent political protest that does not stop until one nonnegotiable demand is met: This Nightmare Must End: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! There are many who would like to see this happen. There is one organization and movement, RefuseFascism.org, that is working and reaching out to people from all walks of life to involve them in making this happen—join with this movement today. November 4, take to the streets. In the name of humanity, we must refuse to accept this fascist America.

Sunday, 22 October 2017

This is a society and culture that has long considered it normal for a man in a position of power to have the "right" to take advantage of his female employees, just as soldiers have considered it their right and reward to "take" women as the spoils of war. This shit is long overdue to fucking stop. Read this bit of righteousness :

SUPPORT AND SPREAD THE FURYAGAINST SEXUAL ABUSE

The phenomenon of sexual harassment and sexual assault—including (but not limited to) the sexual abuse of women by men who hold positions of power over them—is long-standing and widespread throughout this male supremacist society and is reinforced by the putrid culture it has spawned. The outpouring of outrage against this sexual abuse and the all too commonplace institutional cover-ups and complicity with it, and the demand for a radical change in the culture—which has made a major leap in relation to the accusations against Harvey Weinstein and has now spread far beyond that, involving millions of women, in sphere after sphere throughout this country and in other countries as well—is right, righteous, and long overdue, and should be supported, encouraged, spread, and defended against counter-attack.

In the context of such a long-suppressed outpouring of outrage, there are bound to be some negative aspects, including some excesses, where false or exaggerated accusations are made in particular cases; but these have been (and will almost certainly remain) a very secondary aspect of the phenomenon. If and when it may be necessary to point to some of these shortcomings, this must be done very judiciously, in a way that does not undermine the overwhelmingly positive character of this upsurge, and in fact helps to strengthen it.

This long-suppressed and thoroughly just outpouring of outrage is not the same as any particular accusation. Such particular accusations do have to be approached on the basis of scientifically evaluating the evidence, and this is especially important where the accusations not only allege misconduct but actual criminal action, such as rape or other sexual assault. But this distinction, between particular accusations and the overall phenomenon, should not be allowed to obscure or diminish the righteousness and importance of the massive upsurge against this widespread and deeply-rooted abuse and the tremendous injury it does to women and to humanity as a whole.

Thursday, 19 October 2017

I do feel sorry for the passing away of Tragically Hip frontman Gordon Downie. Honestly I do. Cancer is a fucking terrible thing, both for the person who has it, and the loved ones of those who have it. But I have to say that I was completely indifferent to the Tragically Hip's music. I just didn't care one way or the other. Until last night. I was at one of my many jobs, and the radio was playing that band's music all evening. I listened and listened, and after a number of songs, I had to turn it off, even though I like music while I work. ( I don't dare change the station, as they love the classic rock at this place. Besides, what's the alternative ? It all sucks ).I now have gone from complete indifference , to fucking hating that bland. I mean band. They fucking suck. If that's your idea of a "canadian institution ", you're fucked. There is absolutely nothing interesting about that fucking band . So maybe you'll get excited if they mention the canadian town you live in. Wow. Neat. That does not make their music any good. Again, I am sorry for his passing. I will not shed any tears like the shithead prime minister, who I doubt did the same when he heard stories from the survivors of residential schools in this country. Sad that he had to go out so young, but I can not pretend to like his music. Good day.

Wednesday, 18 October 2017

For what it's worth, here's the full unedited version of the interview I just did with the dedicated and righteous Jason Lamb of The Punk Show. I'm sure he'll have a more concise and musical interview on the radio on Friday night at midnight, but this will have to do for now.There are many more things I thought of after the fact that I would have liked to talk about, but that's how things go. The Head St. riot, more about Jay Brown and his life long dedication to punk, Hudson Mack ( the band, not the handsome news guy ), drugs in the scene, and much more. But that would have been a three hour segment , and who wants to hear that ?So for now, here it is .

Tuesday, 17 October 2017

Last night I had an excellent talk with Jason Lamb of The Punk Show . It was nothing earth shattering or life changing, but was fun and hopefully interesting to some people out there. I have to admit that when Jason first asked me to do the show several months ago, I had declined due to my dislike of the station ( and radio in general ). But Jason is such a great guy, unassuming, humble, and gets shit done, that I had a change of heart. That, and the fact that Tyler Stranglehold is a regular part of it, Scott Henderson has recently been on it, had me thinking, " What the hell makes me so special ?" So I told Jason he had won me over with his kindness. He was still playing our music on the show, even though I didn't want to be on it at the time. He even went out and bought a copy of the new CD. I was going to give him one , seeing as how we thanked him on the lyric sheet, but he beat me to it. This man is worthy of your respect. Thank you Jason, and I'm sure I'll see you either at school, ( our kids go to the same one ) or at the next show.

Mumia Abu Jamal on Puerto Rico: ’A colony by any name’

On Christopher Columbus’s second voyage to what was called the West Indies, he visited Puerto Rico, called Boriquen by the native Arawaks dwelling on the island.

Columbus docked in November, 1493, and with him came the force and greed of the Spanish Empire. For four centuries Spain brought imperial exploitation, slavery, repression and death to the Arawak, and in their place arose a new people: the mixture of southern Europeans from Spain, the remnant of Indians, and Africans.

After the U.S. pushed a weakened Spain out of Cuba, it seized Puerto Rico as well.

From that seizure in 1898 by the U.S., until today, Puerto Rico has been an American property, under the U.S. government’s thumb.

Did you know that Puerto Ricans can’t vote for president? That they on the island can’t vote in general elections?

They fight in every American wars–and die in every conflict.

When U.S. businesses open up shop in Puerto Rico, they are exempt from taxes–money that could aid the island in its health and educational needs.

And just days ago, after being lashed by nature’s fury, Hurricane Maria, when they dared complain about slow American response, the U.S. president called Puerto Ricans “ingrates.” “Ingrates!”

Now, weeks later, they are still suffering–no water, no food, no power.

They are Americans in name, but in fact they are colonial subjects of the U.S. Empire.